kerrianddavid.com | The Direction of Intention

Take A Second Pass [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 16, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was the second time we’d walked the loop. The first was many months ago in another season. Though the path was the same it felt as if we were walking an entirely different trail. This time, instead of seeing across brown and yellow winter marshland, we walked through a tunnel of tall viridian reeds. Not able to see the landscape, I looked up through the green at a rain-threatening sky. If our first hike on the boardwalk felt like a discovery, the second pass seemed directed.

The second pass. In life it’s called a memory and it is never the same as the original walk. To begin, it is viewed from a different season. Time alters details, rearranges events, begs questions. The second pass is made with a different purpose-in-mind. To re-view. It is directed, replayed, questioned, run forward and backward. Different endings are tried on for size. Different beginnings, too. Destiny or accident? Did that really happen?

Plotting backward through memory provides ample sense-making. Event chains, choices, that lead to this place, this day, this story called life. Looking forward from the current first pass, this present walk, there is a wide open vista. What if I stepped off the path? Is there a path? It’s all discovery though we rarely experience it that way. The routine of the day or the master to-do-list obscures the newness of each and every step. Same-old-same-old is a sorry reckoning.

Kerri and I are having an ongoing conversation about how quickly and dramatically life can change. Just when you think you know what the day holds a strong wind huffs and puffs, forever altering the arc of your life. The tiniest of choices hold the seeds for the most profound changes. The boardwalk suddenly disappears. Or the opposite, when you are lost and least expect it, a boardwalk magically appears. In a flash a path seems certain.

And, isn’t it awe-some that we are capable of twice-storying this grande life adventure? Giving to each step a meaning and shape the very moment we take them. Giving to each step a different meaning and shape, over and over again, on the return loops, the second pass. Memory.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE BOARDWALK

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Story | Tagged: accident, artistry, boardwalk, chain of events, change, choices, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, destiny, direction, discovery, fate, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, memory, Random, story, storying, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Follow The Map [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 15, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

In the era when I was telling stories at conferences I liked to tell a particular tale of a woman on a quest. She didn’t know it but the many trials she faced on her journey gave her the exact knowledge she needed to confront her monster, complete her quest and return safely to her home. A field of shifting boulders. A dense impassable forest. A thicket of lost souls. She navigated all of them, learned from them, and returned home, changed by her experiences, wiser from her travails.

It’s most often the message in stories about quests. The journey changes us. We rarely understand the purpose or meaning of our passage until its conclusion. We only know we’ve changed after we arrive back from where we started. Then we can turn around and see.

Prior to the Brothers Grimm, there was no woodsman-savior in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. A little girl sets out in life on a winding road to grandma’s house. It’s a metaphor. The little girl becomes an old woman. The wolf is metaphoric of time. The wolf “eats” all of us in the end. No woodsman can save us. No Hallmark ending is possible. What did Red experience on the way to grandma’s house?

It’s hard not to want to rush to the end. To know. There’s the fantastic story of the western businessman who wanted the Dalai Lama to tell him the secret of illumination so he could fast-track enlightenment, to achieve in a month-or-a-minute that which takes many lifetimes. Life lessons pay little attention to the demands of efficiency and effectiveness. Business, after all, is never just business.

Stages of development. Queen Anne’s lace. In its first year it is dedicated to sinking a taproot and developing a “rosette of basal leaves.” Creating a solid base. Only in the second year does it “send forth a flower stalk with blossoms.” It’s impossible to skip step one and arrive at blossoms. In truth, step one and step two are not really separate phases but are a single, gorgeous process of life’s renewal. I imagine that is what the Dalai Lama thought but did not say to the businessman.

In stories, the magic sword fails. Death knocks politely on the front door. The ogre stands in the path. The sphinx smiles and demands an answer. A young girl skips with Time along a winding road. A woman returns home, wiser from her experiences, changed by her journey.

Stories serve as universal maps, like taproots and basal leaves. They ground us. They can help us understand that the arrival we seek, the journey we take, is to ourselves. They can locate us on the winding road of life’s renewal.

read Kerri’s blogpost about QUEEN ANNE’S LACE

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Filed under: Awakening, Metaphor, Story, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, blossom, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Hallmark, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Little Red Riding Hood, metaphor, obstacles, possibilities, process, Queen Anne's Lace, story, studio melange, The Brothers Grimm, The Crescent Moon Bear, the melange, universal story | Leave a comment »

Take Another Step [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 14, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

At the end of the Everest documentary, The Fatal Game, Mark Whetu says, “It’s not that you are alive for such a short period of time, it’s that you are dead for so long.” It’s a film about waking up on the other side of grief. It’s a film about choosing to live.

Grief is one of the many colors on life’s palette. Had I bothered to read the small print in my handbook-for-living I suspect I’d have found a surprising number of references to suffering, sorrow, loss and fear. Colors on the palette necessary for an open heart. Essential colors for the full experience of living in the small window of time called “life”.

Last week I threw up my hands and sat down in defeat. “Lots of energy out. Nothing back!” I pouted, “What’s the point?” My self-pity lasted for an hour and then I stood up, realizing there was nothing to be done but take another step. It simply doesn’t matter how old I am or what I’ve done or haven’t done. It doesn’t matter what title I staple on top of my identity or what story I tell myself. My circumstance simply does not matter. The task remains the same. This day, I reasoned, is just as vibrant either way so, rather than bury my head in darkness, I might as well breathe deeply and enjoy the sun on my face.

Sometimes the only point is to take another step.

I am – apparently – a non-stick learner. I learn lessons over and over again. I am particularly gifted at allowing life’s lessons to slide off. I have been known to teach that the actions we need to take are rarely difficult; the stories we wrap around the actions can make any step seem impossible. Dialing the phone is easy until the mind rages with the tale, “I don’t want to look stupid.”

Effortless action is a Buddhist concept. It is a practice of acting without story. Know your target. Act. Respond.

Send a resume. Write a cover letter. Submit. Take another step.

Mix the color. Choose the brush. Spatter. Take another step.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora and iHeart radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about ONE MORE STEP

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Possibility, Story | Tagged: action, artistry, baby steps, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, effortless action, fear, grief, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life, life lessons, loss, mark whetu, Mount Everest, open heart, presence, sorrow, story, studio melange, The Fatal Game, the melange | 3 Comments »

Bring It To Life [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on August 12, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

We’re staying put this summer. Circumstance requires it though that hasn’t put a damper on our capacity to dream. “If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?” For us, it’s a daily game and fun to play.

Kerri and I are roadtrippers. New experiences feed our imaginations and our artistry. Kerri imagines composing with her piano firmly seated at the edge of the canyonlands. I imagine a series of artist-residencies providing stops along the way, taking us to beautiful places to create, stir the pot, meet new people, ignite ideas…

It’s a great dream. Our job, as we see it, one way or the other, is to bring it to life.

read Kerri’s blogpost about TRAVEL DREAMS

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, bloggers, cartoonists, composer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dreams, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, middle age cartoon, middle age romance, musician, painter, road trip, smack-dab, story, studio melange, the melange, travel, vacation, writers | 4 Comments »

See A Gull [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 11, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

A Haiku

a scavenger bird.

opportunistic, seeker.

see! a gull am I!

The gulls congregate in the Kohls parking lot. We’re not sure why. It seems an unlikely spot for gulls to hang out. Hot pavement. No snacks. Cars coming and going. They camp en masse. Later in the day they exit in full voice and return to the marina. Make sense of that, I dare you!

Susan asked when caring-for-others left the building. I launched into a pedantic monologue that, even to me, sounded like the screech of a gull. Lots of noise, little helpful substance. Or, my diatribe mimicked the adults in a Charlie Brown special. Wah-wah, wah-wah. The sound of a preacher who thinks the path to deeper spirituality is through a map or a dry history lesson. A rule book. A witless shepherd caught lecturing the sheep. (baaaahhhhh)

I wondered what or who I might become if I dedicated myself to knowing nothing. What if I understood to my root that my opinion is just that…an opinion. Not a fact or a truth or blue-ribbon winner at the world-thought-fair. What if life needed no explanation?

What if there is no higher meaning to be found or greater mystery to be solved in the daily seagull pilgrimage to Kohls? What if, rather than seek a rationalization, I gave myself over to the wonder-of-it? What if Joseph Campbell had it right:

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive…”

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about SEAGULLS

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Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Navel Gazing, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, experience, fact, Joseph Campbell, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning, meaning making, opinion, opportunist, seagull, seeker, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, wonder | 1 Comment »

Keep It Pure [on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 10, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

I have favorite paintings. I do not love all of my children equally. Yet, to my great dismay, many of my most treasured pieces get nary a second look from viewers.

When I’m approached by someone interested in buying a painting, Kerri has an uncanny knack at predicting what painting the person will buy. Even if they approach us with a piece in mind, Kerri will squinch her nose and say, “They’re not going to buy that one. They want this one but they don’t know it yet.” She is almost always right.

In one famous case, I was about to destroy a painting and she stopped me. I disliked the painting to the point of embarrassment. “It’s gorgeous!” she cried. “Some one will want to buy that painting!” she insisted. I scoffed but let it live another day. Two months later the piece sold. “See…” she smiled, triumphant.

We’ve been hard at work reimagining and rebuilding my website. It’s coincided with the making and remaking of my resume. Two life reviews from diametrically opposed perspectives happening at the same time. That’s a lot of navel-gazing. I wanted to blend the site, make it a place to find my performance work, books, and organizational/coaching path. Kerri was adamant that I NOT do that. “Keep it pure,” she said. “You’ve done the other thing before so if you want it to be different, then do something different this time.”

For a time I was conflicted. In my moments of I’ll-never-work-again-panic I want to unload all of the possibilities on any potential employer. “I can do this, and this, and this, and this, too!” My my, aren’t I valuable.

We were walking our trail and I was embroiled in the inner debate when we stopped so Kerri could take a photograph of the flowers. Bright, beautiful, warm yellow sunburst from a dark brown center. They are what they are. No apology. No embellishment. No lobbying. Happy. They stopped us in our tracks. It was the Black-Eyed-Susans that convinced me that Kerri was right. Keep it pure. Keep it honest. Keep it simple.

“I am what I am,” I thought. Kerri is right. Mine is not to determine or argue for my value. Mine is to put my work out into the world as honestly and simply as I am able.

visit my new site.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLACK-EYED SUSANS

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Filed under: Art, DR Thursday, Edges | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, simplicity, story, studio melange, the melange, website | Leave a comment »

Discover Again [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 9, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Some books sit idle on my shelf for years and then, one day, with no warning, they leap forward and demand to be read. And so it is with Vāclav Havel’s book Disturbing The Peace. It is my new 2-page-a-day-meditation-book. I’m only a few pages in but already finding the words of this playwright-become-president of the Czech Republic, published in 1991, speaking clear thoughts to the un-united-united-states of 2023.

“It seems to me that if the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.”

The change in consciousness? It is this:

“He must discover again, within himself, a deeper sense of responsibility toward the world, which means responsibility toward something higher than himself.”

He writes that we must extricate ourselves from “the mechanisms of totality” and the “manipulation” of media. We must “rebel against [our] role as a helpless cog in the gigantic and enormous machinery hurtling god knows where.”

Climate change. Attempts to white-wash history rather than learn from it. Populism and a republican party dedicated to authoritarian rule rather than the democratic ideals they are sworn to uphold. The absence of a moral center and, to use a phrase from the past, common courtesy. Courtesy to the commons.

Vāclav Havel led his country through their great chaos, the tension of their divide, power struggles, and the collapse of repressive communism. He was an absurdist playwright. He did not pretend to have answers. He had abundant questions. He argued for the simplicity of confronting the tasks at hand, tasks that are the responsibility of all the people in a nation, tasks like honestly looking at and dealing with their full history. Tasks like turning away from anger-inducing propaganda, conspiracies and lies – and learning to discern what has merit and what does not. In other words, transcending individual-self-serving-belief-bubbles in order to realize and secure the higher ideals of the community.

Every book has its time. I find it extremely hopeful that this book chose this moment to jump off the shelf.

read Kerri’s blog about SKY-THROUGH-TREES

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, change, chaos, climate change, consciousness, czech republic, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democratic ideals, disturbing the peace, divide, ideals, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, populism, propaganda, responsibility, story, studio melange, the melange, Vaclav Havel | 3 Comments »

Step Out [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 8, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Covid made us near-recluses. We have been, like many people, in this “post Covid” era, bumping into a glass wall when we attempt to venture out. It’s as if our social muscle has atrophied. We assign the blame to our current financial situation yet we both know that isn’t true; we live in a region with abundant free concerts and festivals and markets. We can walk to many of the events. We’ve been gifted tickets to museums and gardens.

We plan to go. We make the time. We take a step. We hit the glass. We take a walk in the woods instead. “I’m not sure I want to be in a crowd of people,” we chime. “Too much noise!” we insist.

We point the finger at stress yet we know the very thing we need to do to decrease our stress is to get out of the house, have an adventure, stir the pot…be with people.

With the help of friends we are slowly re-entering the world. Our weekly hike-and-spikes with Jen and Brad. We took 20 to the art museum. We have plans to walk the Third Ward in Milwaukee and eat dinner at the Public Market. Small steps.

It is not an understatement to suggest that Saturday we hit the wall and simultaneously melted down. We made plans to go to an outdoor concert. The evening was perfect. We decided not to decide – another avoidance strategy when our noses are pressed to the glass. It was almost too late. And then something broke. After shaking our fists at the sky and each other, in an act of self-defiance, we stomped into the car and drove to the concert. Birthing pains.

The music recharged us. The audience recharged us: happy people sipping wine, eating cheese and bread, talking, sharing, laughing with the people around them. Complete strangers bonded in kindness, a generosity of spirit enlivened through the shared experience of music. Never suggest to me that the arts are not powerful.

I think we just re-entered the world. Or took an important first step. Certainly, the music cracked the glass wall. I wanted to weep and laugh at the same time. Even as a devoted artist I am sometimes overwhelmed at the subtle, often unrecognized, capacity of the arts to unify and…heal…the human heart.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CONCERT

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Filed under: Art, Metaphor, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, birthing pains, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, friends, friendship, glass wall, healing, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, music, post covid, recluse, social, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Whack! [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 7, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

This is a tale of coincidence.

If you want to learn some great Italian recipes – or just simply want to pick up some great cooking tips, visit Sip-And-Feast. We stumbled on their YouTube channel a year ago and have been desperately hungry ever since. We fantasize about making a trip to Long Island and showing up on their front stoop just in time to taste test their latest recipe. We don’t care what’s cooking since everything they make looks delicious.

I howled with laughter in a recent installment when Tara Delmage suggested whacking mint leaves to release their oil. My current two-pages-a-day-book is called A Whack On T he Side Of The Head: How You Can Be More Creative. In an instant I imagined people as mint leaves needing a whack to release their creative-impulse-oil. It was a hilarious image.

It was an accurate image, too.

I’ve coached a lot of people in my life. The pattern is explicit. Erecting barriers against creative impulses comes standard in all human beings. As social animals, conformity is a vital skill. Fitting-in equates to survival. The dark-side of fitting-in is the requirement of walling-off natural expression. It’s why so many people seek their voice or try to find the time but never find the time to write their book or paint their painting. It’s scary to step out of line.

It’s the reason artists are often seen as wild or dangerous: they exercise the muscles of free expression. It’s also why artists are essential: they counter-balance the conformity. They open doors in the wall. They serve as a gravitational pull toward the mint-oil of natural creativity. They know the secrets of a good whack on the side of the head. They know the right moment to deliver the shock. They know when to encourage chaos and when to infuse some order. The push-me-pull-you of progress.

From the wisdom of Sip-And-Feast I can now offer this piece of solid advice: go make yourself a nice limoncello spritzer. The recipe for the spritzer will provide you all the information you need to pop open your creative flow.

Bon appetit!

read Kerri’s blogpost about MINT LEAVES

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Filed under: Creativity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor | Tagged: artistry, chaos, conformity, cooking, creativity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expression, fitting in, free expression, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, order, pattern, Roger von Oech, sip and feast, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Ask A Rhetorical Question [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on August 5, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

Our stove is almost as old as I am. It was made at a time before planned obsolescence, before things were built to break down. I imagine the people that designed and built our stove had a sense of pride in their work. They built it to last. They were from another time, closer-in-spirit to craftsmen and craftswomen than cogs in a fast moving economic wheel. I imagine the pride they felt in their work was directly connected to the loyalty they felt toward their customer and also their employer who paid them a decent wage, union benefits, a pension.

Loyalty is always a two-way street. Pride is like that, too. A job well done is well done for others.

In our times it seems almost everything operates according to the rules of planned obsolescence. Everything is quickly outdated. Replaceable. Including the customer. Including the employee.

Kerri’s question is as sadly current as it is rhetorical: What about loyalty?

read Kerri’s blogpost about LOYALTY